Of the hunter-gatherers: Ajv70 turns out to be 100% "Northeastern" in this analysis; Ajv52 is 75.1% "Northeastern", 21.8% "Northwestern", 2.9% "Far_Asian", and 0.3% "African". The "Northeastern" component is modal in the Baltic area.

Gok4, the Megalithic farmer was 61.5% "Northwestern", 21.4% "Southeastern", and 17.1% "Southwestern". The "Northwestern" component is modal in Atlantic Europe.

Modern Scandinavians have very little "Southeastern" and "Southwestern" by comparison, and this is probably what accounts for the clear southern origin of Gok4. But, Gok4 does seem to share the major "Northwestern" component with modern Scandinavians.

Two additional 'euro7' components occur in modern Scandinavians, "Caucasus" (~5%) and "Northeastern" (~20-25%). These components also occur in modern populations of the British Isles: the "Caucasus" one at similar or higher frequencies, the "Northeastern" one at lower ones than is the case in Scandinavia.

The fact that these two 'euro7' components are also missing in Oetzi strongly suggests to me that there was a late-Neolithic or post-Neolithic east-to-west migration into Europe from an eastern source area. Given the absence of "Caucasus" in Neolithic Gotland hunter-gatherers, it is a reasonable assumption that this migration may have originated from further south and east, where the "Caucasus" component occurs in modern populations.

There have been several indications linking Northwestern Europe with the Northeast Caucasus region. The latter exhibits high levels of Y-haplogroup R1b, the main Northwest European lineage. It also exhibits unexpectedly high levels of the "Northwest" component. I have little doubt that these twin facts constrain our understanding of the peopling of Western Europe by anchoring it -in some manner- to the Caspian and its environs.

If I had to guess I would propose the following scenario:

The "Northwestern" component represents the pre-Megalithic first farmers of Northwestern Europe, consisting of Linearbandkeramik farmers emanating from Central Europe and admixing with pre-farming Atlantic hunter-gatherers.

The "Megalithic" phase of the Neolithic saw the infusion of a new wave of maritime colonists originating in the eastern Mediterranean ("Southeastern") via Iberia ("Southwestern") and reaching their terminus in Scandinavia.

The last major population movement into Northwestern Europe involved the arrival of a population element from the northern parts of the Near East via the Caucasus, probably originating in the north Iran/Armenia/Azerbaijan/Dagestan "short arc" west and south of the Caspian where there is a local maximum of R1b frequency.

Thankfully, there is ongoing ancient DNA work on both the European steppe and the Balkans/Anatolia, i.e., the two possible conduits through which any additional "players" in the peopling of Europe must have passed through. Together with ancient DNA study of other archaeological cultures in continental Europe itself, (e.g., Corded Ware/Bell Beaker) our picture of prehistoric events is bound to become ever sharper in coming years.And, hopefully, once the actors in the drama are revealed, we can move on to the late Bronze and Iron Ages, to see how they interacted to form the historical peoples of West Eurasia.

Imagine you sail from the Mediterranean route to get to Scandinavia. You probably depart from S. France, then you sail through Gibraltra straits, up the coast of Portugal. You port in the UK, along the seaboard, and you finally land in Scandinavia.

Now imagine a rare Hg has a distribution along this route: like a marker on themap showing the sea voyage. It even has a presence in the Balearics, and the Channel Islands. Notably, it is very coastal outside of its original concentrations.

This is I-M26. I remain in the camp that it marks more than the obsidian trade, but perhaps indicates the progression that you Dienekes describe. Cypriot culture to Sardinia; Sardinian nuragic megalithic culture around the Atlantic seaboard.

GOK4 is more than 50% North Western according to this estimate. Surely this means that GOK was a local? I thought North Western was your best estimate of the Paleoliths of Western Europe. So all of a sudden the North Western must be a farmer from the east? Even though North Western is only high in Western Europe? How does this make sense? If this was so you would expect NW to be higher to the east of the Atlantic (eg Central Europe) and lower towards the coast. This does not happen.

The simplest explanation is that the NE represents the northern east folk travelling along the snowline between east and west hunting game. Sami, Lithuania etc. These folk seem to have always been confined to the far north and no one has suggested previously that they represent the paleoliths of Western Europe. It is extremely unlikely given their absence from middle and southern Europe.

The NW is the folk who evolved into their current form on the mid Atlantic coast over a PROLONGED period of time. The indigenous folk, although we can argue on when they became indigenous. There is no evidence of this group being associated with megalithism. If they came from the east they should appear in large numbers in Eastern populations. This does not happen. IMO NW became a defined population group a very, very long time before GOK was born. Far earlier than megalithism.

The SW is the Southern Atlantic folk with connections to North Africa and the mediterranean. Iberia effectively.

GOK is IMO part of the Scandinavian population exposed to the flow along the western coast down to Iberia, exposed to genes and ideas from the South. Perhaps Grandad was a farmer from the east. But the other 3 grandparents were from the west and modern Swedes have a mere 3% SE.

The Northwestern component has its peak values in areas where there were the megalithic culture was dominant such as Argyll and Cornwall (which also low Southeastern and Southwestern values) not in areas where the LBK culture was extant. So I'm not sure that the components quite capture these historic groups as you suggest.

> A "local maximum" is highly unlikely to be the source. If there was continuity, the progeny of a single man could't have reached "local maximum". If there was no continuity, there's no reason to presume it as the source. A "local maximum" is almost always a "founder effect".

Dienekes, do you think that the La Hoguette impact in France and along the Rhine (originating at least from SE France, if not containing Mediterranean from the known Cardium connection) is implicit in your NW component, or explicit as part of today's higher SW component in French (vs. e.g., Germans)?

Conversion to farming! It has never happened with any obligate hunter/gatherers anywhere. The Mesolithic folk in the South Levant relied on gathering convenient plant species suitable for easy domestication. There are only few suitable zones in the world where that can and has happened. Europe is not one of those zones. In Australia we have obligate hunter/gatherers. They have never become farmers or taken up animal husbandry as in maintaining cattle, sheep, pigs, goat, chickens and so on. The nearest they have gotten to the Neolithic trend is pastoralism, their version is keeping semi wild cattle looked after by non natives and all the indigenes do is collect them for sale. You are all living in a pipedream if you believe those Mesolithic Europeans ever became farmers unless like Australian indigenes they were bred out be the incomers.

This talk of Western hunter-gatherer alleles being part of the modern western clusters is highly optimistic.

Optimistic, in what sense? That implies some conceived value proposition. I am confused by your hermetic, and often apparently sarcastic statements. I am no Dienekes, but you should realize that you make no sense to most readers of this blog.

But it's curious that Basques and Northern Iberians (mainly Western European) cluster so far from modern West Asians in genetic plots. Not sure if we can consider such influence that huge in some cases. Uk/Irish tend to be closer though, but there's still an appreciable distance.

"In Australia we have obligate hunter/gatherers. They have never become farmers or taken up animal husbandry as in maintaining cattle, sheep, pigs, goat, chickens and so on."

In both Australia and Southern Africa, I think it would be fair to conclude that almost all hunter/gatherers became pastoralists, and that this was accompanied by significant admixture with intrusive populations. This was also the experience of some pre-Neolithic Native Americans.

Current hunter/gatherers in the same numbers they are found today had hunter/gatherer ancestors, but most of their hunter/gatherer peers at the time of first contact who managed to leave descendants assimilated into pastoralist socities.

"Optimistic, in what sense? That implies some conceived value proposition. I am confused by your hermetic, and often apparently sarcastic statements. I am no Dienekes, but you should realize that you make no sense to most readers of this blog."

Don't worry, everything will sink in eventually. There's loads of data on the way, and it'll be easy to understand.

There is an example: New Zealand. The Polynesians that colonized the South Island could not grow the plants they brought with them from more tropical parts of the Asia/Pacific, their domesticated animals died. They had to resort to hunting, fishing and gathering to thrive in that Southern clime of New Zealand. What is different about Europeans that makes them so special? Australian Aborigines have never transited to farming unless they happen to have 15 European ancestors and 1 Aboriginal ancestor. Hunters, fishers and gatherers don't become farmers without massive external immigration and admixture which in Europe was male mediated with female hunter, gathers being absorbed into farming communities. Much as what happened in the Americas and Oceania. You are all living in a pipe dream, a rather racist one at that.

Wouldn't it be more useful to associate the LBK with the Southeastern component? It looks like a perfect match to me based on Haak's aDNA data.

That most certainly came from Anatolia and surrounds, and both Oetzi and this TRB farm girl carried it. I'm pretty sure the Corded Ware skeletons would also show it, if tested.

I'm not surprised the Gotland hunter-gatherers didn't carry it, because they were stuck on an island off the mainland. Heck, even modern East Baltic groups don't carry much of it.

So your Northwestern European wouldn't really be specifically linked to that. Rather, I think the Northwestern is a set of allele frequencies that represents all sorts of influences on the North Atlantic.

I agree though, Gedrosia (or West Central Asian) is an interesting puzzle, especially as it's seen at very low frequencies in much of Europe, and peaks in groups with a lot of R1b.

Wouldn't it be more useful to associate the LBK with the Southeastern component? It looks like a perfect match to me based on Haak's aDNA data.

LBK did not exist in the territory dominated by the "Southeastern" component. If anything, euro7-"Southeastern" might be in a sense ancestral to both LBK and Cardial, but cannot be really uniquely associated with either one of those.

I agree though, Gedrosia (or West Central Asian) is an interesting puzzle, especially as it's seen at very low frequencies in much of Europe, and peaks in groups with a lot of R1b.

"Gedrosia" doesn't peak in groups with a lot of R1b, it peaks in Balochistan. Both Oetzi and Gok4 lacked the "West_Asian" and the "Gedrosia" component. This points to a post-Neolithic migration into Europe, since both "West_Asian" and "Gedrosia" peak in Asia.

There are only two routes to get these components into Europe: east-to-west across the steppe (either via the Caucasus or counterclockwise around the Caspian), or from Southeastern Europe.

Actually, I would not be too surprised if the "West_Asian" component had also moved east-to-west within Asia itself after the initial Neolithic. The Neolithic of Europe originated in the Levant and Anatolia, and both these regions are rich (today) in "West_Asian" which is lacking in European Neolithic groups.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the earliest expansion of the "West_Asian" component is associated with the 8.2 kiloyear event. Early waves of agriculturalists in Europe originated from Central Anatolia (Catal Hoyuk -> Thessaly) or Levant -> Cyprus -> Aegean. After the 8.2 ky event, there was a population crash in Mesopotamia which must have been accompanied by a population exodus.

K=12 "Caucasus" is not equivalent to K=7 "West Asian". The latter absorbs most of the K=7 "Southern". That accounts for the fact that Oetzi has no "West Asian" and a good chunk of "Caucasus". It also accounts for the fact that Gok4 is less "Southern" than Oetzi and correspondingly less "Caucasus" as well.

In Europe, the "West Asian" component was responsible for the arrival of Indo-European languages, most likely via the Balkans.

If we get ancient DNA from the Balkans/European steppe, we will be able to determine which route they took into Europe, perhaps both. My money is still on the Balkans though, since there are no IE speakers attested in the steppe prior to the 1st millennium BC.

""Gedrosia" doesn't peak in groups with a lot of R1b, it peaks in Balochistan. Both Oetzi and Gok4 lacked the "West_Asian" and the "Gedrosia" component. This points to a post-Neolithic migration into Europe, since both "West_Asian" and "Gedrosia" peak in Asia."

How do you know it is post neolith? It can be very well neolith. As far as I know the only megalith DNA sample is GOK4 and it is a single individual from a very probably freshly intermixed population. All the others are either older than the local megalith (Treilles) or outside of its geographical reach (Ötzi) or both (Derenburg LBK).

So far we do not have sufficient DNA from megalithic people or bell beaker.

"There are only two routes to get these components into Europe: east-to-west across the steppe (either via the Caucasus or counterclockwise around the Caspian), or from Southeastern Europe.

Make it three. It can be maritime from the neolithic Levant and from the Atlantic coast.

> There have been several indications linking Northwestern Europe with the Northeast Caucasus region. The latter exhibits high levels of Y-haplogroup R1b, the main Northwest European lineage. It also exhibits unexpectedly high levels of the "Northwest" component.

I agree with this but I think the IE that came to western Europe mostly added North European.

You say that west Asian and caucasus distinguish the basque from their ie neighbors, but the basque have a good deal of R1b which you also associate with IE.

You say that west Asian and caucasus distinguish the basque from their ie neighbors, but the basque have a good deal of R1b which you also associate with IE.

First, Basques have ~10% "Gedrosia", the same as other Atlantic populations. They differ from their Indo-European speaking neighbors in not having any "Caucasus" which occurs at 7.9% in French and 8.8% in Spanish_D.

Second, I don't associate R1b with Indo-Europeans, for the reason that it is largely absent in Indo-Aryans, so it does not seem to be a general feature of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Some of it was Indo-Europeanized in a secondary stage, perhaps as the early Indo-Europeans moved from northern Mesopotamia after the 8.2 kiloyear event.

How do you know it is post neolith? It can be very well neolith.

It could. We always have to deal with probabilities, and so far in three of the earliest Y chromosome samples in Europe we have found no R1b. On the other hand, we've found 3/3 haplogroup G. Given that R1b is much more populous than G in Europe today, these results point -at a minimum- to a drastic change in haplogroup frequencies in Europe.

In both Australia and Southern Africa, I think it would be fair to conclude that almost all hunter/gatherers became pastoralists, and that this was accompanied by significant admixture with intrusive populations. This was also the experience of some pre-Neolithic Native Americans.

In Northern Asia AFAIK there is extensive experience of the forest hunter-gatherer tribes becoming pastoralist (e.g. Genghis Khan's mother). Hunter-gatherers who may more easily adopt elements of pastoralism (e.g. exploring their environment for food sources is a natural practice for them) may have had more persistence in areas which were marginal for cereal agriculture (the Caucasus/North East Europe?).

Re: hunter-gatherers and farmers and America again -

I don't know much about American prehistory but as far as I am aware the Northeastern people were farming when they were encountered by Europeans.

However North America seemed very linguistically diverse and ethnically structured when Europeans expanded across it - it doesn't seem to me like there was massive population replacement by a "First Farmers" ethnic group. The high level of structure seems like it would require a high level of time persistence. Doesn't seem like a Bantu-like or postulated Indo-European farmer language expansion ever seems to have happened in North America.

Is that an incorrect impression? How does that match up with the idea of massive replacement in other regions, if so? Do we think that perhaps North and South America were "special (pleading?) cases" due to a Jared Diamond style appeal to its north-south axis?

"However North America seemed very linguistically diverse and ethnically structured when Europeans expanded across it - it doesn't seem to me like there was massive population replacement by a "First Farmers" ethnic group."

Maize, squash and phaseolus beans are Mesoamerican cultigens and they were the basis of American agriculture when Europeans arrived. They diffused up the Mississippi into Texas, the Southeast and the Eastern Woodlands without any apparent migration. Uto-Aztecan, Oto-Manguean and Mayan are the main Mesoamerican language groups and not one langauge of any of them was spoken in any of those northern areas, where Caddoan, Muskogean, Siuoan, Algonkian and Iroquoian languages were spoken. I can't comment on any genetic affinities but i have never seen any mention of a link between the eastern US and Mexico or Mesoamerica.

So yes, foragers have adopted agriculture on thier own without population blending or mass settlement, and it has happened on a very large scale. In any case, the same process happened within Mesoamerica. Presumably the domestication events happened within one of the three groups in Mesoamerica, not in all three simultaneoulsy, so the other two groups, foragers at the time, must have adopted agriculture from the first.

Those three cultigens did replace or edge out previous native cultigens in the northern areas, and in one case a major source of collected food, chestnuts, remained important right up until the English showed up. But come to think of it the same thing is true in France, where chestnuts remained important as back-up food until modern times.

Also, when the Athapaskans (Apachean bands) moved south into the Southwest, the Navajos adopted agriculture from the Pueblo people who were there. The Apache groups did not. It happened recently enough that there may even be some memory as to why some groups did and others didn't.

I think one possibility of the main male haplogroup among the earliest Indo-European speakers may be J2a. It is found among Indo-Aryan speakers in India mostly among higher castes all the way to Atlantic Europe albeit in very small numbers in the far west. Then again J2a is found in it's very highest frequencies among the Ingush and Chechen peoples of the Caucasus in the form of it's subclade J2a4b* and they are Nakh language speakers.

I think one possibility of the main male haplogroup among the earliest Indo-European speakers may be J2a

Not in Europe outside the Mediterranean - that is to some extent, it's lacking in the countries that were IE earliest. It is simply not and never was sufficiently wide-spread, and outside Phoenician and Greek shipping routes occurs mostly around iron-age or classic times trading centers, in the North. Outside SE Europe and other parts of the Mediterranean, it's mostly a (very) late-comer.

I am very skeptical about trying to attach haplogroups to languages except in very particular cases. Firstly, they may not even survive in easily apparent numbers (Hungary). Secondly, sometimes women have a stronger influence on language continuity (otherwise, the UK would now speak a Romance language).

However, I think for IE, one can perhaps make the argument for G2a - see my comment to the original Ancient DNA from Neolithic Sweden (Skoglund et al. 2012) post by Dienekes in this blog.

The 8.2 Kya event, well if by this "suggestion" I.E. People were having exodus from N. Mesopotemia then we must expect them to reach the areas of SC Asia and others much early than what is 'proposed'.Hint: there was a skeleton change in Mehrgarh around 4600b.c. With more doliocephalicness.

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